Abstract

Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) should not only be considered a philologist, humanist,legist or political advisor. He also deserves particular attention for his philosophical concerns, closely connected with his theological and religious commitment. He resolutely goes back to the classical tradition, but his writings De verbo mirifico and De arte cabalistica are also substantially influenced by Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Some of his fundamental views show that Reuchlin did assume andcarry on impulses from Pico della Mirandola: 1. his conception of man's 'deification', essentially linked to Pico's notion of freedom; 2. the thesis of his philosophy of history, of an 'early wisdom' which has to be appropriated and renewed through personal understanding; 3. the importance of Cabala for the establishment of a general semiology and of a specifically linguistic theory, based on an intensive relationship between word and thing and corresponding to a numerical foundation of all reality (Reuchlin as 'Pythagoras redivivus'); 4. the quest for the original Name of God, performed by an analysis of the 'tetragrammaton'